Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Colony of Warriors

PBS recently did a short documentary about Guam and veterans here as part of their program America by the Numbers. It was a pretty good piece. I was interviewed for the program at the WWII Memorial Asan Overlook as seen in the picture for this post. The interview was pretty long covering a whole range of topics. As usually happens with these sorts of things, very little of it was used in the actual interview. I still think it was a good piece even if I was barely in it, although there was a glaring, but expected lack of discourse around Guam's political status.

The issue of Guam's colonial status is always something that mainstream media in the states have difficulty with. You can describe it in a hundred different ways, talk about it from this angle, that angle, give a wide range of options for how to approach it, but ultimately it is for your average media person, something they can't engage with. It would require too much discursive muster, it would consume any piece and the piece would end up having to be solely about Guam the colony. This is always the limitation with media. If something doesn't lie within the accepted frame of reference, frame of discourse, then it either has to be ignored or be neutralized since there isn't enough space or time to deal with it. This isn't only a problem with those who produce the media but also those who ingest and consume it. People watch the news expecting learn new things that follow a familiar structure. They don't want a new structure to their lives, to the way they see or feel or experience things. They just want new data to fill the slots. They want to know the latest corrupt politician. The latest tech trend. The latest feel good story. The latest can't miss court case. If anything challenges the foundation people tend to tune it out. It bounces off of them. They end up blaming the messengers for giving them things they didn't have the easy frame to understand. It sometimes leads to a sparking of curiosity, but generally, the fact that they don't know it becomes a reason to resist it.

When media tangles or bumps up against colonialism, they also water it down and weaken it down to become mere "discrimination" or "lack of fair treatment" or "disrespect." These become things which you can easily just ascribe to someone feeling like they are being mistreated rather than there being a system of inequality and marginalization in place. Even if people are discussing potential evils or sins or wrongs that the United States, its citizens, its government, its military is committing, they tend to pull back from actually engaging in what colonialism is and means, and instead reduce things to misunderstandings, where a slight shift in perspective or a quick fix can solve all problems. In the case of the discussion of "colonialism" in this documentary, the problem is that you can watch it and assume that if only the US gave more money to veterans on Guam than everything would be ok. This is how most people assume you can fix problems like this, if only the US would do more, give more, but all of this obscures the fact that inclusion/exclusion is the problem. What good does it do to constantly demand inclusion and respect when you exist as part of a system in which your island is not including and not supposed to be respected? Everything is fine until you realize that everything that you are basing your demands or your political argument upon is based on a fiction. Guam is a colony. Whether or not it is the best treated colony in the world is irrelevant, it is still a colony.

This is the problem with so much discourse around war reparations, the military buildup and even the way most people conceive of decolonization. There is a fundamental misunderstanding about the relationship between Guam and the United States. The difficulty of the media in the states in addressing the fact that the US has been a colonizer for a long time and even prior to that participated in genocide and the wholesale displacement of millions of indigenous people, means that they aren't much help either.

This documentary does better than most media coverage about Guam, but it remains problematic in the same way. Here's some coverage from the Washington Post of it below.

*****************

Guam: A High Concentration of Veterans but Rock Bottom in VA Funding
Josh Hicks
Washington Post
October 29, 2014

Guam has a small population of about 200,000 residents, but it’s home
to one of the highest concentrations of military veterans among U.S.
states and territories. One in eight adults on the Pacific island have
served in the armed forces.

Despite those numbers,
the island ranked last in the country for per capita medical spending by
the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2012, with an average of $822 for
each former service member. Virginia had the next lowest rate with a
much greater $1,275 per veteran.

PBS recently explored whether Guam veterans are receiving the care they deserve in a documentary called “Island of Warriors,” part of an “America by the Numbers” series that examines shifting U.S. demographics and the significance to the nation.

Journalist
Maria Hinojosa talked with Guam veterans about why they serve in the
military and the level of treatment they receive when they return home.

The
VA opened a new outpatient clinic for Guam veterans in 2011, but the
island still lacks the kind of specialized treatment facilities
available in other locations. The nearest intensive program for
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is located more than 3,000 miles
away in Hawaii.

“For me, that’s why I just stay home,” said
Roland Ada, a Guamanian who was diagnosed with PTSD after serving two
tours in Iraq as a combat medic. The veteran said he rarely socializes
any more and thinks about ending his life several times a day.

The documentary also looked at U.S. Census data, which shows that
about 8,000 former troops live in Guam. Many politicians and veterans
advocates on the island suspect that the numbers are inaccurate
and causing a lack of VA funding for the territory.

“I think right now we’re doing quite well,” he said, adding that the
clinic recently added more mental-health staff, including social workers
and nurses.

Oswald agreed that Guamanians should have access to
the specialized care they need, but he rejected the notion that the VA
has overlooked the island.

“I think Guam is very well-known to
‘Big VA,’ to Washington, D.C.,” he said. “Our particular health-care
system has actually received several million dollars … that’s being
spent directly on veterans in the Pacific.”

But Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo disagreed, saying the Senate cut mental-health funding for the territory two years in a row.

“The
federal government has not done their part to assist the very patriotic
group of American citizens fighting in so many distant lands, in areas
that have never tasted democracy,” Calvo said. “Yet these American
citizens of Guam really have not felt what true democracy is all about.”
At
the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan last decade, four of the
Army’s top recruiters were from Guam, and enlistment on the island
doubled while it was falling almost everywhere else in the nation,
according to the documentary.

"It’s a family tradition to do it,” said Sfc. Gonzalo Fernandez, a
recruiter for the Army National Guard who won recruiter of the year
awards three times in a row during that span.
Fernandez also
attributed the high numbers to a sense of patriotism among Guam
residents. But University of Guam history professor Michael Bevacqua
said recruits may be attracted to the “shininess and the niceness” of
the military, which offers economic opportunities they may not otherwise
find outside the armed services.

Guam’s unemployment rate is
13.3 percent, whereas the the national average is 7.5 percent; and
nearly 23 percent of residents there live in poverty, compared to about
15 percent of Americans overall, according to the documentary.

No comments:

LinkWithin

Put Guahu / About Me

This blog is dedicated to Chamorro issues, the use and revitalization of the Chamoru language and the decolonization of Guam. This blog also aims to inform people around the world about the history, culture and language and struggles of the Chamorro people, who are the indigenous islanders of Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Luta and Pagan in the Mariana Islands. Pues Haggannaihon ha', ya taitai na'ya, ya Si Yu'us Ma'ase para i finatto-mu.

Statcounter Code

The Revolution Will Not Be Haolified

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE HAOLIFIEDTinige’ as Guahu - 2003 (updated 2008)

You will not be able to ignore it che’lu * This time you will not be able to blame it all on Anghet * You will not be able to change channels * And watch Fear Factor, Rev TV of Salamat Po Guam because * The Revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised, nor will it be advertised * It will not be sponsored by the Good Guys at Moylan’s or the better guys at AK. * It will not be something easily explained by radio callers * Whether they be Positively Local, Definitively Settler, or Surprisingly Coconut * It will not be cornered by the Calvos and explained by Sabrina Salas * Matanane * After the story about the incoming B-52’s or 1000’s of Marines careening towards to Guam, and how we * should be economically energized and not terrorized. * Jon Anderson will have no TT anecdotes about it * and Chris Barnett won’t malafunkshun it because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised or editorialized * It will not be something canabilized with two inches here two inches there * Dubious headlines everywhere * Lee Weber will not edit it * Joe Murphy will not put it in his pipe and smoke it * Nor dream about it, or tell others the wonders and blunders of it. * There will be no letters to the editor quoting scriptures or denying its constitutionality * And there will be no American flag inserts saying these three colors just don’t run * As the revolution will not be editorialized

The revolution will not be televised or politicized * It will not play the same old gayu games * And promise you that same old talonan things. * The revolution will not wave at you as you drive by on Marine Drive * And seduce you with its hardworking eyes. * It will not be territorial or popular, and not encourage you with maolek blue. * The revolution will not put marang salaman po after its speeches to get more Filipino votes in the next election because the revolution will not be politicized

The revolution will not be televised, not be theorized * It will not be something GCC or UOG friendly. * There will be no books at Bestseller offering to help you lose something in 90 days * Or Rachel Ray helping you cook the revolution of your way. * Ron McNinch will not survey it * and will not poll people about their revolution of choice. * There will be no WASC review report demanding accountability demanding autonomy * And no beachcombing carpetbaggers will proclaim their own terminal authority * Over the histories, the laws, the thinking of those for whom they see nothing but corrupt and corrupting inferiority * The revolution will not be colonized

The revolution will not be televised, not be supersized. * The revolution will not be something you can buy at Ross, or get at blue light cost * It is not just red rice, kelaguan uhang, or popcorn with Tobacco sauce. * It doesn’t come with Coke and it doesn’t fit on a fiesta plate. * The revolution will not make you gof sinexy, cure your jafjaf, or make fragrant your fa’fa’ * The revolution will not force you to be where America’s empire begins * Or where Japan’s golf courses and Gerry Yingling’s credit card debt ends. * You won’t need a credit card, or be charged for the tin foil to cover your balutan * As the revolution will not be economized

The revolution will not be televised, blownback or militarized * There will be no more physical ordnance buried in people’s lands * And no more patrionizing propaganda buried in people’s minds * The revolution will not get you cheaper cases of chicken or increased commissary privileges. * It will not make freedomless flags feel more comfortable in your hands * Or make uniforms fit more snugly around your mind. * The revolution will not deny racism or exploitation * And not create histories about landfalls of destiny * But instead publicize the racism and evils of American hegemony. * The revolution will not be subsidized by construction contracts or the race of Senator Inouye or Congressman Burton * It will not be laid waste to by daisy cut budgets or Medicare spending limits * Instead it will be sustained by deep memories that refuse to die * The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised and will not polarize based on blood or color * It will not make your skin lighter * It will not make your skin darker * It will not test your blood the way Hitler or Uncle Sam would of done * It will not hate some and love others based on their time of naturalization * Or incept date of their compacts of free association. * But the revolution will help some find comfort, find strength, find power * In their connections to the land and to each other * Allow some to discover the sovereignty that can be found in solidarity * The revolution will take and remake this consciousness that doesn’t need to be televised * But does need to be revolutionized * The revolution will not be haolified * The revolution will not be haolified